Police re-captured an escaped Missouri inmate. Then he got away in a stolen patrol car

Police are searching for an inmate who escaped a Missouri jail and then stole a police car from Oklahoma police officers who were attempting to re-arrest him days later.

Travis Lee Davis, 30, disappeared from his cell late Saturday night where he was being held on $110,00 bond for “various charges including kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a minor, domestic assault, resisting arrest and parole violation,” according to the Pettis County Sheriff’s Department. He was arrested in February after allegedly threatening to kill his pregnant girlfriend and an 8-month-old baby during a standoff with police, KRCG 13 reported.

Police believe Davis escaped by climbing into the ceiling of his cell, “across the rafters, through a maintenance access hole in the concrete wall, into a maintenance closet,” and then fleeing on foot through a side exit, according to a probable cause statement obtained by the station.

"We're hunting the fella," Capt. Dave Keller of the Pettis County Sheriff's Department told KRCG 13. "Hunting him vigorously. We'll get him. It's just a matter of time.”

Davis was charged Monday with escape from confinement and issued a $100,000 cash-only bond, according to the Sedalia Democrat. He successfully evaded law enforcement until police were called to the Choctaw Travel Plaza in Heavener, Oklahoma, around 7 a.m. Wednesday by a woman who said she’d been kidnapped, the Democrat reported.

The woman told police a man had forced her to drive at gunpoint and then fallen asleep while they were stopped at the gas station, according to the paper.

Travis Lee Davis escaped from Pettis County Jail over the weekend and then evaded capture by stealing a police car in Oklahoma.(Photo: LeFlore County Sheriff)

“He attempted to escape from officers but they caught him, cuffed him and put him in the car. He somehow got the cuffs to the front of him and somehow managed to get through the window in the partition while my guys were interviewing the victim,” Heavener Police Chief Ty Armstrong told the Democrat. “He went through the window, stole the car and went approximately 2 miles and crashed, then fled on foot.”

Police told local news that after Davis squeezed his 6-foot, 150-pound frame through the window the separates officers from suspects, he was able to drive away even though the officers had the key fob, KHBS reported.

Armstrong told the station he believes Davis may have jumped onto a freight train that was in the area during the escape.

Posted!

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

Police forces stand near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. A gunman who opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on March 18, injuring several people, is on the run, police said. Police only spoke of one gunman but did not rule out the possibility there might be others, the ANP news agency quoted police as saying. ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN, AFP/Getty Images

A fighter with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fires a mortar shell toward a part of Baghouz where remaining Islamic State (IS) group fighters are holding out in their last position, in the countryside of the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor on March 18, 2019. GIUSEPPE CACACE, AFP/Getty Images

A man walks on debis from a damaged house in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, March 18, 2019. According to media reports a 5.4 magnitude earthquake on Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara, has caused a landslide in North Lombok. Two Malaysians were confirmed dead as a group of 22 Malaysians were at the Tiu Kele Senaru waterfall in North Lombok when the quake happened. STR, EPA-EFE